Though Karl Rove receives a salary from Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp for his work as a Fox News Channel “political contributor,” his compensation doesn’t end there. The network frequently airs ads by his American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS political committees, as “news,” free of charge.

A ThinkProgress review of Fox News Channel broadcasts over the past twelve months revealed that Fox News programs ran all or a significant part of Crossroads ads at least 34 times — an estimated value of more than $3.6 million in free air time. Frequently, the network’s hosts run the ads during Rove’s segments and then allow him to explain and repeat their charges.

On Monday, for example, Fox News aired a significant chunk of a new American Crossroads ad attacking former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over her handling of the attacks in Benghazi, Libya. Noting criticism the ad received from conservative columnist William Kristol, host Martha MacCullum asked Rove: “What say you?”

Watch the video:

According to TVEyes Media Monitoring Suite, a subscription-only search engine for TV broadcasts, a 30-second slot on America’s Newsroom program has a “national publicity value” of $79,445.92. But because the ad was shown during the programming, Rove and American Crossroads got 20-something seconds of the ad for free, rather than having to pay Fox News Channel or local cable companies for the air time. What’s more, he was then paid to promote his own advertisement.

ThinkProgress found eight other recent Fox News broadcasts featuring Crossroads commercials in TVEyes, with an estimated value of about $580,000 combined. A Nexis search of other Fox News transcripts found at least 25 other times when hosts showed significant clips of ads. Estimating the value of these slots based on an average of recent “national publicity values” for each suggests they were worth more than $3 mllion. It is worth noting that ratings for Fox News (and all news networks) have been lower in 2013 than in the 2012 election year, so the value of the pre-election ad plays would likely have been even higher.
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Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) tore into Fox News’ Chris Wallace and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) for obsessing over the talking points U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice used when talking to the media in the days following the attack in Benghazi, Libya rather than focusing on identifying the perpetrators of the killings. “I think the desire of the Republicans to create a scandal here has really undermined any ability to have a credible look at what actually happened,” Smith said during an appearance on Fox News Sunday alongside Rogers.

While acknowledging that the administration’s initial assessment of Bengazi did not reflect what officials later learned about the incident, Smith criticized Fox for suggesting that that Rice’s remarks on five Sunday news shows presented a definitive picture of the events of Sep. 11, 2012.

“[The administration] didn’t reach conclusions the way you just presented that was that by the Sunday afterwards that the administration said here is what happened, here is our conclusion,” Smith explained. “But the president never said, no terrorism, no Al Qaeda. There was a dispute about how soon to lead to specific conclusions that now is being made into Watergate and Iran-Contra.” Watch it:

Indeed, during multiple appearances on the Sunday shows Rice said that the attacks were in part a response to the anti-Islam video that had spurred protests across the region, but did not offer a definitive answer as to what exactly took place in Benghazi and predicated the administration’s assessment as “based on the information that we have at present.” The CIA and State Department did initially believe that the attack was spontaneously inspired by the protests in Cairo, Egypt.

Still, in the days after the attack, both Obama and then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described the events in Benghazi as an “act of terror” and pledged justice against the perpetrators.

Wallace responded to Smith pointing out that intelligence officials changed Rice’s talking points at least 12 times, taking out references to prior attacks and specific terrorist groups. “We’re talking about talking points,” Smith reminded the host. “There was no question this was a it terrorist attack. They didn’t deny it. I would much rather get into investigation of the groups that threatened the U.S., figure out how they are, and how to stop them instead of debating how one memo was put together in the immediate days after the attack.”

On Wednesday, in a moment of rich irony, Fox News invited Oliver North, a military official who was convicted of covering up the government’s role in the Iran-Contra scandal, to discuss the Obama administration’s alleged cover-up of the Sep. 11, 2012 attacks on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi. North joined host Megyn Kelly to analyze the House Oversight Committee’s hearing featuring three witnesses who claim that the government could have done more on the night of the attack to save American lives.

During the segment, North explained that the administration “falsified talking points provided to people who were going to speak publicly about it” in the days following the incident and manipulated the Accountability Review Board report, which came out months later, to escape political blame.

North specifically singled out Ambassador Thomas Pickering and Admiral Mike Mullen, who headed the review, and accused them of lacking “integrity.” Watch it:

In 1987, while testifying before a joint Congressional committee, North admitted that he lied to Congress about his role in the Iran-Contra scandal — in which officials secretly sold arms to Iran to fund a resistance movement to the government in Nicaragua — and shred documents to cover-up the government’s actions. North was indicted on 16 counts and convicted of three: accepting an illegal gratuity, aiding and abetting in the obstruction of a congressional inquiry, and ordering the destruction of documents.

Throughout Wednesday’s hearing, Republicans sought to portray the lack of military response during the Benghazi attack as evidence of the administration’s negligence in protecting diplomats overseas and a resulting cover-up to avoid scrutiny. But they produced no evidence of a conspiracy and the military has repeatedly said that there were simply no air assets close enough to Benghazi that would have arrived in time to make a difference.

Fox News’ morning show, Fox & Friends, is taking a surprisingly skeptical approach to GOP claims that the Obama administration and the entire U.S. government engaged in a massive cover-up of the attacks on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya in an effort to re-elect the president and protect him from scrutiny.

On Monday, the trio of hosts invited Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) — a regular fixture on cable television and a critic of Obama’s handling of the September 11, 2012 attacks — to discuss the House Republicans’ upcoming hearing with three witnesses who claim that the administration prevented them from speaking out about the incident. “We were certainly misled at every step of the way,” Chaffetz said, arguing that officials manipulated the findings of the Accountability Review Board, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice’s talking points, and told military officials on the ground not to interfere or protect American interests during the attack.

The hosts then tore into Chaffetz’s theory, wondering if Ambassador Thomas Pickering and Admiral Mike Mullen, who headed the review, the entire CIA, and Republican-appointed officials could all be “complicit” in such a massive conspiracy:

BRIAN KILMEADE: Are you saying that admiral Pickering and Mullen are complicit because they did the review board? Are you saying that the CIA is complicit because they allowed their talking points to be edited? … What about Admiral Mullen and Pickering? Why would they sacrifice their reputation for a report that isn’t accurate? [...]

STEVE DOOCY: Congressman, it sounds like what you’ve described, it sounds like there has been a cover-up, but what were they trying to cover up? [...]

GRETCHEN CARLSON: But Congressman, it’s an interesting question because it does involve so many high-level people. You had the former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta — who was revered by both sides of the fence — coming out and saying, ‘hey, we couldn’t have gotten anybody there.’ So you have him on the line. You have former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, President Obama, Admiral Mullen. Would all of these people go to bat just to get President Obama reelected?

KILMEADE: What about David Petraeus?

Chaffetz couldn’t offer a convincing answer, initially blaming the media for failing to report on the cover-up and then saying that the ongoing investigation will reveal the motive.

Watch it:

During a separate appearance on Fox News Sunday, Chaffetz accused the Department of State of repeated threats and intimidation against witnesses to the attack. But when pressed by Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace for examples, he could offer none.

The House Oversight Committee will hold another hearing on the Benghazi attacks on Wednesday.

Fox News is sounding the alarm about Muslim extremists in the aftermath of the Boston bombings and is using the tragedy to argue that President Obama is too weak or afraid to confront the threat.

A day after Fox News host Bill O’Reilly wondered why Obama refused to condemn radical Islam before the Boston bombers’ motives were known, the network suggested that Obama’s middle name might provide the answer. Radio host Bill Cunningham implied, while appearing on Sean Hannity’s program, that Obama’s upbringing in Indonesia prevents him from opposing terrorism:

CUNNINGHAM: Sean Hannity, maybe his middle name is a clue, as well as the fact that he spent his childhood practicing the Muslim faith. I think — of course he’s a Christian now, but we have to understand where he came from. He says the sweetest sound he ever heard was prayers at sunset. So with that orientation, I think it’s hard for this to say anything other than “Muslim jihadist terrorist” because it runs contrary to what he was taught as a boy in Honolulu and Jakarta, Indonesia.

Conservatives have long used Obama’s middle name to suggest that he is a secret Muslim sympathizer, but Fox’s Islamophobia following Boston extends beyond the president. Media Matters has gathered a sampling of the network’s immediate pivot to inviting on a slew of Islamophobic guests to comment on the attack. In addition, several Fox hosts and guests — including Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) — have called for limiting the number of Muslims entering the U.S. on student visas as a response to the attacks, despite the fact that the Tsarnaev brothers were not in the country under such conditions.

Fox host Erick Bolling referred to Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) as a “Muslim apologist” during a segment calling for greater profiling of Muslim Americans. And just hours after the bombings hit, Fox News contributor Erik Rush was calling for the death of all Muslims. Sadly, Fox’s targeting of Muslims isn’t anything new, given their long and sordid history of doing so.